Welcome to A Home For Tandy! My passion is to create hand made textile homewares and accessories using natural materials, coloured and printed with natural dyes. Here's where I document my processes from my home studio in Melbourne’s outer east as well as "show and tell" new products and exciting happenings. I hope what you find here will inspire creativity, nesting, nurturing and the appreciation of your own environment. Happy browsing!
www.ahomefortandy.com

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Sunday, 22 September 2013

A Day To Dye For

Today's activity was a toss-up between quilt stitching and dyeing but being a gorgeous spring day, the latter won. Even though the main action is around my kitchen stove, there's a lot that's outdoorsy about dyeing; swanning about the garden picking plant material, wrapping the bundles on the veranda table, rinsing and hanging the results on the line...and today I just couldn't resist!

I had some pre-hemmed habutai silk scarfs ready to go for months and I took the opportunity to use up some small quantities of dye left over from previous sessions. The scarfs wilt down to almost nothing and so can be dyed in just a cupful or so (I try to waste nothing!) Each scarf required over dyeing, some went in and out of the bath three or four times before the desired effect was reached. Patience and persistence paid off!

I then took advantage of the last rays of the late afternoon to capture some images.....